When we’re not creating content, we spend our few spare moments contributing to new conversations in our professional Facebook and LinkedIn groups, getting a pulse on the latest trends from relevant industry trades, and scrolling through select newsletters we receive after carefully sharing our info.

But sometimes, there’s nothing that quite compares to the feeling of entering a convention center with hundreds or even thousands of other career-minded folks to get your blood pumping. Or to hear the roar of the crowd during that opening keynote…it’s a powerful experience.

But with so many companies hosting conferences these days, how does one ensure the ROI of a trip to any of the events taking place throughout the calendar year?

This article aims to aid you in the decision-making process. Below find 37 of the best digital marketing speakers (in no particular order) who will be presenting at conferences in 2018.

1. Mark Schaefer

A globally-recognized author, speaker, podcaster and business consultant who blogs at {grow}, Mark Schaefer has written at length about some very important issues, including content shock. I greatly admire his work and respect his industry candor.

Find him at:

2. Andy Crestodina

Co-founder of Orbit Media, an award-winning web design company in Chicago, Andy Crestodina has provided web strategy and marketing advice to more than 1,000 companies over the course of 13 years. He’s written in-depth articles on a number of topics, and I had the pleasure of watching him speak at Content Marketing World a few years ago.

Areas of expertise:

Analytics, content strategy, email marketing, SEO, social media

Find him at:

3. Alisa Meredith

Alisa Meredith is a blogger, speaker, author and content marketing manager at Tailwind who believes in the power of visual marketing. She’s on a mission to help businesses get in their creative groove—so if you’re looking for some of the same, she’s the one for you.

Find her at:

4. Andrew Davis

A bestselling author and keynote speaker, Andrew Davis produced for NBC and worked for The Muppets before building and selling a thriving digital marketing agency. A man of many talents, audiences are excited to see Andrew on stage this year.

Areas of expertise:

Digital marketing, content marketing, branding, business

Find him at:

5. Ana Hoffman

Responsible for taking TrafficGenerationCafe.com from an unknown blog to the top 18,000 global sites in four months (according to Alexa.com), Ana Hoffman is an OG growth hacker tirelessly searching for and discovering innovative ways to drive profitable website traffic, for free.

Areas of expertise:

SEO, blog audits, blogging, growth hacking

Find her at:

6. Lee Odden

Lee Odden is co-founder and CEO of TopRank Marketing, a US-based digital marketing agency serving major B2B brands. A recognized content creator and influencer marketer, if you haven’t heard one of Lee’s talks, now is your chance.

Find him at:

7. Chad Pollitt

Chad Pollitt is the co-founder of Relevance and author of “The Native Advertising Manifesto,” “The Content Promotion Manifesto” and “51 Things Your Mother Taught You About Inbound Marketing.” I’ve long appreciated his expertise, especially in the domain of native, and think you will too.

Find him at:

8. Larry Kim

Larry Kim is the founder of WordStream, the world’s largest PPC marketing software company, managing hundreds of millions of dollars of ad spend for thousands of companies worldwide. His free tools for AdWords, Facebook Ads and keyword research have been used by millions of marketers, making the man a marketing legend.

Areas of expertise:

Find her at:

10. Will Critchlow

Founder of Distilled, Will Critchlow has been helping digital marketers jump-start their careers in online marketing for years. Consultant for some of the world’s largest organizations and most famous websites, it’s no wonder he has spoken at most major industry events.

Areas of expertise:

Find her at:

12. Marcus Sheridan

From pool guy to best-seller, Marcus Sheridan brought his swimming pool company from the brink of bankruptcy and turned it into one of the most successful in the US. This road to redemption story is one you shouldn’t miss.

Areas of expertise:

Content marketing, social media, digital marketing, business

Find him at:

13. Rebecca Lieb

Rebecca Lieb is a strategic advisor, research analyst, keynote speaker, author and columnist. She was Altimeter Group’s digital advertising and media analyst, where she published what remains the largest extant body of research on paid, owned and earned media. Basically, if Rebecca Lieb believes it to be true, I believe it, too.

Find her at:

14. Jay Acunzo

Jay Acunzo is an award-winning podcaster and dynamic keynote speaker. Before creating the popular show Unthinkable, Jay was a digital media strategist at Google and head of content at HubSpot. You may recognize him as the host with the most during recent Content Marketing World events.

Areas of expertise:

Business, blogging, podcasting

Find him at:

15. Eric Enge

Eric Enge was named 2016’s Search Marketer of the Year (Male) at the Landys and 2016 Search Personality of the Year at the US Search Awards. His company, Stone Temple Consulting, was also named Best Large SEO Agency of the Year at the US Search Awards. So really, if you want one of the best in SEO, Eric’s the guy.

Areas of expertise:

SEO, content marketing, social media

Find him at:

16. Melanie Deziel

Melanie Deziel is an award-winning native ad strategist and writer, as well as a member of the board of the Native Ad Institute. Formerly of The New York Times, Huffington Post and Time Inc., Melanie wrote the 2014 and 2015 Best Native Ads (OMMA), and is the founder of the native ad industry newsletter, The Overlap League. Okay, Melanie, we want to see you.

17. Joe Lazauskas

Joe Lazauskas is the director of content strategy for Contently, executive editor of The Content Strategist, winner of the 2016 Digiday Award for Best Brand Publication, and all-around good dude. He also recently co-authored a book entitled The Storytelling Edge, which you should grab and gobble up!

Areas of expertise:

Content marketing, brand storytelling, content strategy

Find him at:

18. Talia Wolf

Talia Wolf helps businesses use emotional targeting, psychology and persuasive design to create better customer journeys and generate more revenue, leads and sales. A popular keynote speaker, her presentations are loaded with data and actionable tips, best practices and case studies—my favorite.

Areas of expertise:

Strategy, conversion optimization, growth hacking

Find her at:

19. Ann Handley

Chief content officer of MarketingProfs, Ann Handley speaks and writes about how to rethink the way businesses markets themselves. Cited in Forbes as the most influential woman in social media, she was also recognized by ForbesWoman as one of the top 20 women bloggers. Very well deserved, if you ask me.

Areas of expertise:

Find him at:

21. Seth Godin

Everyone knows Seth Godin—and if you don’t…now you do!. Author of 18 best-selling books around the world (and translated into more than 35 languages), he writes about the post-industrial revolution, the way ideas spread, marketing, quitting, leadership and most of all, changing everything. The man is a living legend.

22. Arnie Kuenn

Arnie Kuenn is founder and CEO of Vertical Measures, a content marketing agency with SEO helping their clients drive profitable growth through content marketing. He has also authored two acclaimed content marketing books and travels around the globe as content marketing instructor and trainer at numerous conferences, workshops and seminars. This man knows what he’s talking about.

Areas of expertise:

Online business growth, content marketing, social media, local internet marketing, SEO, link building

Areas of expertise:

Find her at:

24. Ardath Albee

Ardath Albee is the author of “Digital Relevance: Developing Marketing Content and Strategies that Drive Results” and “eMarketing Strategies for the Complex Sale.” She has been voted one of the 50 Most Influential People in Sales and Lead Management for the past three years, and was selected as a 2014 Woman to Watch in B2B Marketing by FierceCMO.

Areas of expertise:

Digital marketing, content strategy, sales enablement

Find her at:

25. Ian Cleary

Ian Cleary is the founder of RazorSocial and a digital strategist with a strong passion for technology. He writes for Forbes and Entrepreneur.com, and loves being on stage inspiring, educating and entertaining. Come learn some valuable insights from Ian.

Areas of expertise:

Social media, content marketing

Find him at:

26. Robert Rose

Robert Rose is founder and chief troublemaker for the The Content Advisory, the education and consulting group with the Content Marketing Institute. He’s worked with more than 500 companies, including 15 of the Fortune 100, providing marketing advice and counsel for global brands such as Capital One, Dell, Ernst & Young, HP, Microsoft, Thomson Reuters, Abbott Laboratories, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and UPS. Wow.

27. Doug Kessler

Doug Kessler is co-founder and creative director of Velocity, the London-based B2B content marketing agency. He’s famous for pieces such as “Crap: Why The Biggest Threat to Content Marketing is Content Marketing” and “The Big Fat Content Marketing Strategy Checklist.” Doug can often be found ranting against the reactionary forces of mediocre marketing—but always with a bit of a wink.

Find him at:

28. Scott Brinker

Scott Brinker is president and CTO of ion interactive. He is chair of the MarTech® Conference, a vendor-agnostic marketing technology conference and trade show series produced by MarTech Today’s parent company, Third Door Media. In a nutshell, he knows a ton about the technology we use to power our marketing initiatives.

29. Oli Gardiner

Unbounce co-founder Oli Gardner has seen more landing pages than anyone on the planet. A prolific international speaker, Oli is on a mission to rid the world of marketing mediocrity by using data-informed copywriting, design, interaction and psychology to create a more delightful experience for marketers and customers alike.

30. Michael Brenner

Michael Brenner is a globally recognized keynote speaker, author of “The Content Formula” and CEO of Marketing Insider Group. Recognized by Huffington Post as a top business keynote speaker and by Forbes as a top CMO influencer, I follow him across my professional social channels, and you sure won’t want to miss him.

Areas of expertise:

Business, leadership, marketing strategies, content marketing

Find him at:

31. Jay Baer

Founder of Convince & Convert, Jay Baer is a renowned business strategist, keynote speaker, and New York Times best-selling author of five books including “Hug Your Haters.” He’s also advised more than 700 companies since 1994, including Caterpillar, Nike, Allstate, The United Nations and 32 of the Fortune 500.

32. Bryan Eisenberg

Bryan Eisenberg is co-founder of BuyerLegends and co-author of Wall Street Journal and New York Times best-selling books “Call to Action,” “Always Be Testing,” “Waiting For Your Cat to Bark?” and “Buyer Legends: The Executive Storytellers Guide.” Bryan has been the keynote speaker for Shop.org, Direct Marketing Association, E-consultancy, Microsoft, the Canadian Marketing Association and hundreds of other events across the globe.

Find him at:

33. Peep Laja

Peep Laja is the founder of CXL and CXL Institute, along with two of the world’s most popular data-driven marketing blogs. He is passionate about driving change and growth through digital optimization and was voted the No. 1 most influential conversion rate optimization expert in the world.

Find him at:

34. Joe Pulizzi

Some like to call him the godfather of content marketing. Famous for his orange suits and masterfully organized events, if you want to learn about the origins of content marketing, look no further than Joe Pulizzi, founder of Content Marketing Institute.

Areas of expertise:

All things content marketing

Find him at:

35. Brian Clark

Brian Clark built three successful service businesses using online marketing techniques before moving to a completely online business model when he started the site Copyblogger in 2006. The eventual result of that move—Rainmaker Digital—is an innovative company that provides the advice and solutions that empower people to successfully grow their businesses through social media and online marketing. Wow, just wow.

Areas of expertise:

Business, online marketing, blogging, copywriting

Find him at:

36. Julie Fleischer

I saw Julie Fleischer speak at Advertising Week a few years ago, and absolutely loved her take on the topic of data and measurement for publishers. It’s no wonder, seeing as she has been a data-driven pioneer for more than 20 years. She has spearheaded product marketing for Neustar’s award-winning Marketing Solutions portfolio and is absolutely brilliant.

37. Chris Goward

When companies like Google, IBM, Magento and 1-800 Flowers want to improve their marketing results, they call Chris Goward. Founder of WiderFunnel. Chris is the brain behind the LIFT Model® and Infinity Optimization Process™.

Areas of expertise:

CRO, personalization

Find him at:

Recap

No matter what your specialty or domain, the speakers highlighted above will help you home in on the events that will be most valuable to you. Whether or not they include free happy hours, snacks, beautiful accommodations or the trendiest entertainment—you’ll have to research on your own.

But what any conference should aim to deliver is an amazing roster of speakers who will teach you things you didn’t know, open your mind to new ideas and provide actionable insights that will make you a better marketer.

This list is a great starting point for all of your digital marketing initiatives.

Shana Pilewski

Shana Pilewski is a Senior Content Marketer at Dynamic Yield, a global leader in omnichannel personalization. There, her experience and passion for content strategy, development and creation allow her to help marketers level up their own skills.

After hearing Carla Johnson speak at numerous events, I had her speak and lead workshops at meetings with marketing leaders from our top customers. It was the best reviewed session we ever did. Carla adapted and personalized the message to address the specific needs of the group and give them actionable takeaways they could implement in their businesses. She’s relevant and engaging and I can’t recommend her highly enough for any speaking engagement. She should definitely be on this list of top speakers for marketing conferences.